BOURNE END:
I have had a most delightful opportunity to see something of the country life of England, and one that the casual traveler cannot experience, unless she has friends living here. It was on a house-boat at Bourne End, and the memory of that charming week will live long after paintings and sculptures have faded from my mind. It was the last week in June. The Thames was in gala dress for the boat races, and the banks were lined with house-boats—veritable bowers of plants and blossoms—ready for the Henley regatta. These house-boats are really flatboats supporting summer cottages. They are seldom moved except for the races, and are then towed up the Thames to Henley or Oxford by little tugs.
The scene is one of unsurpassed loveliness—the banks lined with these floating bowers, the water dotted with thousands of small boats each flying some college colors, the fresh-looking English maidens in holiday array, the stalwart fellows in white duck, the bands of music, the gaiety and flowers—flowers everywhere. If you have read the description of an Oxford regatta in "The Handsome Humes," you will agree with me, I am sure.
NATIONAL GALLERY, LONDON, FRONTING TRAFALGAR SQUARE
I shall not soon forget those who have been faithful and have written me every little while. No one knows, save those who have experienced it, what a letter means to one traveling in a strange country.
I am having the desire of my life. Every one is lovely to me. I am seeing picturesque England, literary England and historical England. I am having an ideally perfect time amid elegance and luxury, yet you can little realize the courage it takes not to throw the whole thing up and go home. I feel as though I'd like to gallop—run is too tame—right off to the docks and take the first thing that crosses that big ocean. Never fear, though; I'm going to brave it out, and I'll be a better and a wiser woman in consequence of it.